1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a test technology of a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel, and more particular to a thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) array substrate and a test method for the same.
2. Description of Related Art
The TFT-LCD is the display device that fully catches up and overtakes a cathode ray tube (CRT) display device on the overall performance of the brightness, contrast, power, life, volume and weight. It has excellent performance, good characteristic for mass production, and high degree of automation so as to rapidly become mainstream products. The LCD panel of the TFT-LCD device comprises a thin-film transistor array substrate (array substrate), a color filter array substrate (CF substrate), and liquid crystals sandwiched between the two substrates. Wherein, the array substrate and the CF substrate are formed through a chemical or physical method and then exposure, developing, etching to get a required design of the array substrate. Before shipment of the LCD panel of the TFT-LCD device, in order to ensure the quality of the products, it must pass a test process for mainly checking whether the TFT structure of the LCD panel is normal.
In the conventional test technology of the LCD panel, it uses a test short bar wiring on the panel to test. As shown in FIG. 1, it illustrates a schematic view of a typical TFT-LCD array substrate. Wherein, the LCD panel includes a display area 1 and a peripheral area 2 located at a periphery of the display area 1.
In the display area 1, it provides with a plurality of data lines 10 and a plurality of gate lines 12 mutually perpendicular. The intersection location of each of the data lines 10 and the gate lines 12 connects with a TFT unit 14, and each of the TFT units 14 includes a TFT, a liquid crystal capacitor and a storage capacitor. The source electrode of the TFT of each of the TFT unit 14 connects to one of the data line 10, and its gate electrode connects to one of the gate line 12.
In the peripheral area 2, it provides with a first test short bar. And a plurality of data test lines 30 (respectively corresponding to red/green/blue test) are disposed on the first test short bar and respectively connect to the data lines 10 in the display area 1 for transmitting a data test signal to the data lines 10. A second test short bar includes a gate test line 40 and a common electrode line 41, wherein the gate test line 40 connects to the gate lines 12 in the display area 1, and it is used to transmit a test signal to the gate lines 12; the common electrode line 41 is used to provides a common electrode for the display area of each of the TFT units 14. Wherein, the data test signal and the gate test signal may all be square wave signals, and they can light up the TFT units to execute a defect inspection.
When the above inspection is completed, the LCD panel can be cut at a position 6, to separate the peripheral area 2 and the display area 1, and then move the LCD panel with removed peripheral area 2 to the next working process (e.g. the subsequent process).
The inventors have found that in the prior art, if a product problem is found in the next step, it cannot execute a test for the LCD panel because the test short bars has been removed. And thus it is difficult to identify that the problem found at the defective products is cause by the LCD panel itself or by the subsequent process.